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General => MusicBee Wishlist => Topic started by: redwing on January 19, 2013, 06:42:03 PM

Title: "Replace file" feature
Post by: redwing on January 19, 2013, 06:42:03 PM
Originated from this thread: http://getmusicbee.com/forum/index.php?topic=8538.0

Say, you want to replace an audio file in your music library with a new one.

How it would work:

1. You place the new file in inbox (no need for tagging)
2. Go to music library and right-click on the track you want to update
3. Select "Replace file" sub-menu which will then display the list of files in inbox
4. Select the new file you just placed in inbox
5. MB overwrites the original file with the new one while retaining all the tags and metadata of the original including Date Added, play count, rating, and all the (auto)playlists which it belongs to.

If implemented, this would make the process for updating audio file a lot simpler and easier.
Title: Re: "Replace file" feature
Post by: Bee-liever on January 19, 2013, 08:59:22 PM
maybe "update" would be a better term than "replace"  ???
Title: Re: "Replace file" feature
Post by: redwing on January 19, 2013, 09:02:44 PM
maybe "update" would be a better term than "replace"  ???

I had thought so too, but then it occurred to me that it could be confused with rescanning files for updating tags.
Title: Re: "Replace file" feature
Post by: tom_dl on January 19, 2013, 09:16:47 PM
I've been meaning to post this wish for ages.

Massive +1!
Title: Re: "Replace file" feature
Post by: Bee-liever on January 19, 2013, 09:26:03 PM
I had thought so too, but then it occurred to me that it could be confused with rescanning files for updating tags.

True. Maybe "Upgrade" or "Repair"? "Replace" just makes me think that you'd be deleting one and replacing it with the other, without keeping the tags.

BTW +1
Title: Re: "Replace file" feature
Post by: psychoadept on January 20, 2013, 06:44:42 AM
A possibly simpler solution that would do about the same thing might be to have the tag copying function include playlist placement, etc.
Title: Re: "Replace file" feature
Post by: redwing on January 20, 2013, 10:21:44 AM
A possibly simpler solution that would do about the same thing might be to have the tag copying function include playlist placement, etc.

MB already has two kinds of tag copying functions (whether to include play count and rating). Making that three wouldn't make things simpler in any way. Plus, you would still have to tag, copy, and delete a file.
Title: Re: "Replace file" feature
Post by: Zak on January 20, 2013, 04:16:21 PM
I think this would be a useful feature but find Redwing's suggested implementation overly complicated.

For one, it assumes everyone uses the Inbox which isn't true.
For two, it means moving your replacement file to a monitored folder to make it appear in the Inbox, which seems unnecessary because you're only going to move it again anyway.
For three, if you haven't tagged your replacement file (and there's no point, because you're about to replace all of its tags anyway), you won't easily be able to identify which track will be the replacement unless you display all the file paths which would be messy.

I think it would suffice if the "Replace file" menu command just displays a standard file browser dialog to select the replacement file. MusicBee can then take care of the file moving, renaming and tagging.
Title: Re: "Replace file" feature
Post by: redwing on January 20, 2013, 04:30:47 PM
I think this would be a useful feature but find Redwing's suggested implementation overly complicated.

For one, it assumes everyone uses the Inbox which isn't true.
For two, it means moving your replacement file to a monitored folder to make it appear in the Inbox, which seems unnecessary because you're only going to move it again anyway.
For three, if you haven't tagged your replacement file (and there's no point, because you're about to replace all of its tags anyway), you won't easily be able to identify which track will be the replacement unless you display all the file paths which would be messy.

I think it would suffice if the "Replace file" menu command just displays a standard file browser dialog to select the replacement file. MusicBee can then take care of the file moving, renaming and tagging.

So your suggestion is to use a standard file browser dialog instead of inbox? No objection with your way, either.
Title: Re: "Replace file" feature
Post by: greenday1987 on January 20, 2013, 04:38:58 PM
I like Zac's idea but I suspect that would be a fairly major coding project and probably more hassle than it's worth. I wouldn't think that many users would use it
Title: Re: "Replace file" feature
Post by: psychoadept on January 20, 2013, 04:44:41 PM
Yeah, Zak's idea seems sound, if it can be pulled off.  I have over 10K files in my inbox, currently, so that method would be kind of impossible.
Title: Re: "Replace file" feature
Post by: redwing on January 20, 2013, 04:53:10 PM
I have over 10K files in my inbox, currently

What are they doing there? I'm just curious.
Title: Re: "Replace file" feature
Post by: Steven on January 20, 2013, 05:02:28 PM
i've actually already implemented this along the lines Zak has suggested. I will make it available when i get a chance to complete testing it.
Title: Re: "Replace file" feature
Post by: redwing on January 20, 2013, 05:07:39 PM
i've actually already implemented this along the lines Zak has suggested. I will make it available when i get a chance to complete testing it.

Fantastic! I'm looking forward to the update. Thanks!
Title: Re: "Replace file" feature
Post by: Zak on January 20, 2013, 06:05:46 PM
Gotta love a developer who implements feature requests before they've been requested.  :D
Title: Re: "Replace file" feature
Post by: paq on January 20, 2013, 06:40:08 PM
If I'm not mistaken, isn't this sort of already possible using the File Converter and the option "when the output file already exists, skip conversion and synchronize tag values only"?

It was added during a similar request: http://getmusicbee.com/forum/index.php?topic=6054.0

Title: Re: "Replace file" feature
Post by: Steven on January 20, 2013, 07:26:36 PM
this has the new functionality:
http://musicbee.niblseed.com/V2_1/MusicBee_Exe_Patched.zip
Title: Re: "Replace file" feature
Post by: Zak on January 20, 2013, 07:47:24 PM
If I'm not mistaken, isn't this sort of already possible using the File Converter and the option "when the output file already exists, skip conversion and synchronize tag values only"?
Never really noticed that before and while it sounds like it could be made to do the same thing, it would be a lot trickier. To replace old files with new copies ripped from a CD for example, you'd have to rip to a lossless format, import those files into MusicBee, then use MusicBee to convert to your desired target format in order to replace the low quality originals.  :(

I don't know about anyone else, but I want to replace old files with one that could have come from any program, not necessarily MusicBee.
Title: Re: "Replace file" feature
Post by: Steven on January 20, 2013, 08:06:34 PM
having played around with this a bit more now i am going to make it 2 menu items:
Choose a File to be Replaced...
Choose a File to Replace the Selected File...
Title: Re: "Replace file" feature
Post by: redwing on January 20, 2013, 08:16:22 PM
having played around with this a bit more now i am going to make it 2 menu items:
Choose a File to be Replaced...
Choose a File to Replace the Selected File...

1. Currently it's working kind of opposite way to what I'd expected. I suggested a file in music library is replaced by a new file, not vice versa. I'm afraid the suggested "2 menu items" could be confusing. I don't think "Choose a File to be Replaced..." option would be necessary at all.
2. If you agree with #1, confirmation window should state this will be replaced by that.
3. When right-clicked, "Folder (Replace)" should not be grayed out.
4. Personally I think inbox would work better than the file browser dialog. It's a pain to find the new source file's path every time with the dialog.
Title: Re: "Replace file" feature
Post by: Bee-liever on January 20, 2013, 08:25:19 PM
synchronize tag values only

I knew I had seen this option, but couldn't remember where.

Couldn't you select a file in the main menu, right-click and have a "synchronize tags" option which would open a file browser to select the other file you want to synchronize with. After selection, a screen could show both tracks with a check box and a delete and/or replace option selectable for each file?

NB I can do a mock-up of what I mean (if it's not to late)
Title: Re: "Replace file" feature
Post by: Steven on January 20, 2013, 09:28:59 PM
new menu item added as described above, and the older version wasnt rewriting the tags of the replaced file
http://musicbee.niblseed.com/V2_1/MusicBee_Exe_Patched.zip
Title: Re: "Replace file" feature
Post by: lnminente on January 20, 2013, 10:02:11 PM
CTRL+C is for copying tags
CTRL+V is for pasting

What about CTRL+X for "moving" the audio stream to a destination file when we apply CTRL+V over it? (Confirmation dialog should be needed to explain what is going to happen)
Title: Re: "Replace file" feature
Post by: Bee-liever on January 20, 2013, 10:31:11 PM
NB I can do a mock-up of what I mean (if it's not to late)

guessing I'm to late. I'll just scrap that mock-up  ;)
Title: Re: "Replace file" feature
Post by: Zak on January 20, 2013, 11:34:36 PM
4. Personally I think inbox would work better than the file browser dialog. It's a pain to find the new source file's path every time with the dialog.
Looking at the latest version, I think you'll find the newly added command will let you work this way. You can right-click a track in the Inbox and use it to replace a superseded file. You'll still have to use the file dialog to find the older file though.
Title: Re: "Replace file" feature
Post by: redwing on January 21, 2013, 01:29:44 AM
new menu item added as described above, and the older version wasnt rewriting the tags of the replaced file
http://musicbee.niblseed.com/V2_1/MusicBee_Exe_Patched.zip

I tried the new version, and wondered how it handles file format. It seems that the original file extension is retained after being replaced by another format file. And sometimes the new file can play and sometimes can't. I think it should not try to retain original file format by converting the new file. Instead it should simply copy and follow the new file's format. That's the point of updating audio stream. For instance, if I replace Skyfall.mp3 with Skyfall.flac, the replaced filename should be changed to Skyfall.flac and it should be a flac file, not mp3.

Another issue is the grayed-out "Folder (Replace)" command when right-clicking any tracks in music library. But it is not grayed out for tracks in inbox. I don't know why it's grayed out, and when it's grayed-out it's difficult to move the mouse to the next step to find the two replace commands.
Title: Re: "Replace file" feature
Post by: psychoadept on January 21, 2013, 01:39:08 AM
What are they doing there? I'm just curious.

I'm sorting through them to decide what to keep.  Once I've gotten through them once, the number should remain much lower and I might use the Inbox more like others do.  But in the course of breaking away from iTunes, I wanted to finally deal with these all files that had been sitting on my hard drive for years and years.
Title: Re: "Replace file" feature
Post by: redwing on January 21, 2013, 01:54:26 AM
What are they doing there? I'm just curious.

I'm sorting through them to decide what to keep.  Once I've gotten through them once, the number should remain much lower and I might use the Inbox more like others do.  But in the course of breaking away from iTunes, I wanted to finally deal with these all files that had been sitting on my hard drive for years and years.

I see. I had a similar experience at one point. I tried to sort them out, but it never happened. Finally I decided to send them to music library while keeping them in several special playlists. That way I was able to enjoy those music just like other library tracks as well as use inbox normally even for handling those files. It took several months to be done...just my two cents.
Title: Re: "Replace file" feature
Post by: Zak on January 21, 2013, 04:12:10 PM
I think it should not try to retain original file format by converting the new file. Instead it should simply copy and follow the new file's format. That's the point of updating audio stream. For instance, if I replace Skyfall.mp3 with Skyfall.flac, the replaced filename should be changed to Skyfall.flac and it should be a flac file, not mp3.
Second this.

Also, I replaced an MP3 with a FLAC and ended up with a FLAC file with an ID3 tag (albeit with an MP3 extension), when it should really use the tagging library native to the new file format.
Title: Re: "Replace file" feature
Post by: Steven on January 21, 2013, 06:10:46 PM
yep thats a bug which i will fix for the next update
Title: Re: "Replace file" feature
Post by: Steven on January 21, 2013, 09:02:20 PM
this has the fix:
http://musicbee.niblseed.com/V2_1/MusicBee_Exe_Patched.zip
Title: Re: "Replace file" feature
Post by: redwing on January 21, 2013, 09:38:24 PM
this has the fix:
http://musicbee.niblseed.com/V2_1/MusicBee_Exe_Patched.zip

Just tested with two different file formats, and it worked perfectly. And got no error messages at all. Thanks a lot!

The only remaining issue is the grayed out "Folder (Replace)" menu. Not a big deal, but don't get why it's grayed out for any tracks in music library unlike inbox tracks.
Title: Re: "Replace file" feature
Post by: Steven on January 21, 2013, 09:47:51 PM
i have changed it so it doesnt do that for auto-organised library files
Title: Re: "Replace file" feature
Post by: redwing on January 21, 2013, 09:52:17 PM
i have changed it so it doesnt do that for auto-organised library files

Yep, it's now working perfectly. Thank you again!
Title: Re: "Replace file" feature
Post by: beeing good on January 22, 2013, 05:06:57 AM
Does this only work for individual files?
Title: Re: "Replace file" feature
Post by: redwing on January 22, 2013, 05:32:09 AM
Does this only work for individual files?

I think so.
Title: Re: "Replace file" feature
Post by: redwing on January 22, 2013, 06:59:28 AM
After testing this feature for a while, I think it would be better to leave the source file undeleted after execution. Users might want to keep those source files elsewhere after using them for updating their existing tracks even though it's possible to restore them from Recycle Bin, and many won't appreciate MB deleting their hard-earned music files.
Title: Re: "Replace file" feature
Post by: lnminente on January 22, 2013, 11:37:53 AM
What about this idea?
Shift+Ctrl+C Destination file will have this audio stream
Shift+Ctrl+X Destination file will have this audio stream, and this file will be deleted
Shift+Ctrl+V This file will have the same tags adapted to the new format and the audio stream will be updated
Title: Re: "Replace file" feature
Post by: redwing on January 22, 2013, 12:13:34 PM
What about this idea?
Shift+Ctrl+C Destination file will have this audio stream
Shift+Ctrl+X Destination file will have this audio stream, and this file will be deleted
Shift+Ctrl+V This file will have the same tags adapted to the new format and the audio stream will be updated

Great idea! That would be very convenient without the second one that will only confuse things.
Title: Re: "Replace file" feature
Post by: psychoadept on February 11, 2013, 09:15:54 AM
This is supposed to carry over all tags and playlist placements, right?

I'm getting some tags replaced but others brought in from the new files, including comments and artwork.  Hidden tags like MusicBrainz IDs are not carrying over from the old file and the old files turn into blank playlist entries, while the new files aren't in the playlist. (The last may be related to my lost files problem?) Actually, since the tags that appear to be correct are the major ones that the new file may have already, I don't know whether any of the old ones are being preserved.
Title: Re: "Replace file" feature
Post by: psychoadept on March 05, 2013, 03:52:21 PM
I don't know how you arranged it so that MB seems to know what folder to look in for the file you want to use to replace another one, but that's pretty amazing.
Title: Re: "Replace file" feature
Post by: tom_dl on March 06, 2013, 03:18:59 PM
I don't know how you arranged it so that MB seems to know what folder to look in for the file you want to use to replace another one, but that's pretty amazing.

Strange you should say that - I feel the complete opposite right now. Just been replacing an album, and when I first goto replace, MB guessed wrong. It then guessed wrong for every other track, rather than sticking on the folder I picked from for the previous track.

@Steven: Could MB please stick to the previous folder, at least for a few minutes? Otherwise the process takes much longer when MB guesses wrong. Thanks
Title: Re: "Replace file" feature
Post by: redwing on March 31, 2013, 05:36:34 AM
It would be greatly appreciated if multiple files can be replaced with this feature.

I've got more than a thousand files to replace, and doing that one by one seems quite daunting.
Title: Re: "Replace file" feature
Post by: psychoadept on March 31, 2013, 07:00:10 AM
I think being able to do whole albums at once makes sense.  Any other version of multiple file replacement strikes me as making it way too easy for someone who doesn't quite know what they're doing to completely scramble their library.
Title: Re: "Replace file" feature
Post by: beeing good on March 31, 2013, 07:18:11 AM
I would welcome full albums. I have used this feature a few times and it is excellent but I would use it a lot more if it was capable of doing full albums.
Title: Re: "Replace file" feature
Post by: psychoadept on September 15, 2015, 06:17:31 AM
I know this was explained somewhere, but I haven't been able to find it:  when using the "Replace selected file" command, how does MB choose which folder to open?

In my experience, it opens the last subfolder in the artists's folder in the inbox.  In a perfect world, I'd love for it to look at the "automatically sweep and organize" template and find the actual Inbox folder that would correspond to the file being replaced...  barring that I would prefer that it just opened the artist's folder and let me choose the subfolder, or at least go to the first rather than last subfolder.
Title: Re: "Replace file" feature
Post by: Pingaware on September 19, 2015, 04:38:59 PM
Steven explained it to me once when I made a false bug report. It's something like it opens the last folder in the Inbox if there is the same artist present (it uses artist not album artist), and if not, it opens the last folder that you manually navigated to.
Title: Re: "Replace file" feature
Post by: psychoadept on September 20, 2015, 05:36:30 AM
Steven explained it to me once when I made a false bug report. It's something like it opens the last folder in the Inbox if there is the same artist present (it uses artist not album artist), and if not, it opens the last folder that you manually navigated to.

Right, thanks.  What I'm suggesting is that either MusicBee make some sort of intelligent guess as to which folder to open under the artist folder, or not try to guess which subfolder to open.  If I'm going down a list replacing tracks, I'm going to go from top to bottom, and since my folder names correspond almost exactly to my library sort order (Artist/Year - Album), opening the last folder is unhelpful - it means I have to navigate UP from that folder, and then down to the correct folder, not just once but for every track in an album.  So I think MB should default to the artist level folder if it can't match subfolders precisely.

Wild thought here - I get why Steven wouldn't want to try to automatically replace a whole album, too much room for things to get borked.  But what if there was a "replace album" dialog that worked a little like the auto-tag by album screen, where you could see the list of matched tracks and adjust manually before replacing multiple files?  It could be limited to one source folder and one target folder to keep things from getting out of hand.
Title: Re: "Replace file" feature
Post by: emmaoninternet on September 21, 2015, 05:17:47 AM
Wild thought here - I get why Steven wouldn't want to try to automatically replace a whole album, too much room for things to get borked.  But what if there was a "replace album" dialog that worked a little like the auto-tag by album screen, where you could see the list of matched tracks and adjust manually before replacing multiple files?  It could be limited to one source folder and one target folder to keep things from getting out of hand.

+1 this, especially speaking as someone who's about to blow up their drive with upgraded quality versions of, like, 1/3 of a 25K song library